Whiskey Print “Tom”

I was intrigued by a project that Beth Parker talked about called a whiskey print. She said you could take an ink jet print and place it face down on your paper and liberally brush whiskey on the backside and the print would come off on your paper. Above is my whiskey print and the resulting painting. I used one of my figure drawings and transferred it. This can also be done with a photograph.

I will be trying more of these as I don’t drink whiskey and it didn’t take the whole bottle for this print.

Recently I have been reading about monotype printing and such but this is the first time I have ever heard of whiskey print. It sounds very interesting.What happen to the inkjet print line once you paint over it? Does it dissolve away? How often can you use a print to transfer onto the watercolor paper?

This is the first one I’ve done, so I’m working it out as I go. Remember to reverse your image because it will print the original in reverse if you don’t. The inkjet line is easier to cover than graphite so it does give a little cleaner look to the painting. If you zoom in on mine, above, you may be able to make out a little grayish smudge on his left arm above the elbow. That’s the ink jet. Mine printed blurry, as you see, but my paper was pretty bumpy and I used 24lb print paper. I’ll bet if I had used a thinner print paper and a smoother watercolor paper, I would have had a more clear image. I did not mind working with the blurry as I think it challenged me to be more creative. The line doesn’t dissolve, but I can’t see it any longer. The print is soggy and a mess because you brush that whiskey on sopping wet so it is not re-usable. The whiskey may leave a little red tone to the paper. I had that, but it helped me to describe my background. Remember, you can do this with a color photograph ink jet print, too. Check out the links I’ve included above. Rubbing alcohol and wine do not work. It has to be whiskey.

Leslie, thanks for the info. I will look out for the opportunity to buy the cheapest bourbon next time! lol.It look like a great alternative to monotype printing…since I don’t want to invest on buying more supplies without knowing how interested I am in printed works.

Deva. Inkjet your photograph. Place it face down on the paper you want to print it on and carefully brush liberal amounts of whiskey over the back of the inkjet print and I mean liberally. I used a large soft flat brush like you use to paint trim with. I worked from the center outward concentrating on keeping the inkjet paper from folding as I went.

It ‘has to be whiskey’-cheap whiskey just a good as the expensive stuff?–LOL—okay, who came up with this technique?
I like the resulting image, leslie. But am still considering this process with some –some wondering. laughs

Visit Beth Parker’s link above. I think she found this technique in a book. No…it can be cheap whiskey because that worked for me. Hey..give it a try with one of those West Bottom Boys photos you took. Wonder what it would come out like.

I tried rubbing alcohol and I tried wine and they did not work. I didn’t buy an expensive whiskey. I bought the cheapest I could find. There was a man in the aisle that said if I wanted something cheaper, I could go with this bourbon and he pointed to it. I found out later that bourbon is whiskey. I said I had better stick with this because this is what the blogger said to use. I’ll bet he’s wondering what I was all about, Huh?

Hi June.Thanks for the comment. I take the slap on the hand for the mustache. It took me a long time to learn to draw and paint Tom. He has a very long torso, so I always make it a little too long. Then, if that’s not enough, he will have a beard with his mustache in winter and just the mustache in summer. He even donned those glue-on devil horns at Halloween one time. I posted that earlier on the blog. Because of his creativity as a model, he is one of my favorites. I agree. The mustache I painted is weird.